1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns a device for its putting into effect, designed for the carrying-out, with at least prevailingly mechanical means and in conditions of high efficiency and correctness, of the operation of separation of a tubular article of great length, in particular of a piece of rubber hose, whether or not reinforced, from the core or elongated body, in general metallic, around which the article is previously manufactured by helical winding of a number of layers or tapes in raw rubber, possibly and partly reinforced with a textile structure, and then treated so as to obtain the vulcanization of the rubber or the elastomeric material forming the main constituent of the industrial product.
More specifically, this invention concerns equipment for the industrial uses indicated, and adapted to constitute an element or operative unit of a complete plant for the manufacture of pieces of hose, of great length, in natural or synthetic rubber, such a plant being the subjet of another contemporaneous application by the same applicant, to whose context reference is herein made, o for the better understanding of some of the technical and industrial presuppositions of this same invention.
Moreover, the above mentioned application of this invention does not constitute a limitation of the domain of the patent application, in that the invention subject here could find advantageous industrial uses in equivalent fields.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known in the art to which this invention appertains, that the extraction of a metallic core, of uniform diameter, from a tubular article preformed and treated (in particular vulcanized) around the said core, gives rise to not indifferent problems and difficulties, despite the predisposition of a suitable detaching agent on the surface of the said core, difficulties which become more serious and finally almost insuperable, with the increase in the length of the core and thus of the article. It must in fact be remembered that an article of this kind, with an essentially elastic nature, tends to contract when it is subjected to stresses of tension, which prevent its movement. In fact, it is not possible, with this industrial production, to extract the core from the article (or viceversa) by simply exerting traction in a contrary direction on one extremity of the article and respectively on the opposite extremity of the core.
In practice, according to the present technique, it is necessary to carry out all the operations and handling excusively by hand. A necessarily considerable number of operators, expert and attentive, grasp the outside of the article, in a corresponding number of strictly spaced intervals and, acting synchronously, they move the tubular article, in an axial direction, in such a way as to make it slide uniformly at every point of its length around the core. An operation of this kind, other than obviously requiring the availability of numerous personnel and taking a not indifferent length of time (generally proportional to the length of the article), is obviously not feasible when this length exceeds determined limits.